Junior Open Wheel Talent

This was a busy weekend for those following karting and junior formula racing. As I stated last week, you can find 1,356,959 race reports out there so rather than publish another one and add to that number, I thought I’d recap a few things here using bullets.

CKI- New Castle Motorsports Park

Arie Ouimet (KF2) and Neil Alberico (TaG-Sr.) both swept the senior classes over the weekend in the CKI WSK North American Series.

It was nice to see junior formula pilots Joel Miller and Conor Daly return to the karting ranks for the weekend.

Daniel Erickson was incredibly fast this weekend claiming the pole position in both qualifying sessions. It was his first time in a F2000 Championship car. With a little luck, he would have won at least one race this weekend as well. Unfortunately, he was plagued by some mechanical issues while leading Sunday’s race.

Keith McCrone earned the hard charger award in Race-1 by driving from 30th to 17th in 14 laps.

The 2007 F2000 Champion Cole Morgan put in a solid drive to claim the victory in Race-2.

Edoardo Mortara started off the year right where most expected him too; at the front. He finished the race just ahead of his Signature teammate Marco Wittmann – who set the fastest lap of the race.

Adrian Quaife-Hobbs improved the most positions. He started 11th and finished 6th; improving 5 spots in 19 laps.

Alexander Sims won Race 2 by over 7-seconds after finishing 3rd in Race 1.

Daniel Juncadella set the fastest lap of the race in Sunday’s event and earned his first career pole position for Race 1.

Indy Lights- Barber Motorsports Park

J.K. Vernay continued his dominance this weekend at Barber Motorsports Park. He started the season out by dominating the field on a rain-soaked street course (St. Petersburg) and then followed that up with another impressive win yesterday over Charlie Kimball and Sebastian Saavedra.

In addition to his race winnings, Vernay also won $5,000 for the Firestone back-to-back win bonus.

I think the IRL did a great job scheduling the Indy Lights race just prior to the IndyCar race. The crowd was excellent, perhaps one of the biggest in recent memory for a Indy Lights road course event.

There were quite a few complaints about passing zones, but I didn’t have any issues with the race action. Drivers were creating passing opportunities and the race craft was excellent. The most notable driving occurred mid-pack in a heated battle between James Winslow, Dan Clarke, Gustavo Yacaman, Junior Strous, Philip Major and Niall Quinn. All the drivers involved did a great job being aggressive in the corners without taking each other out.

The Barber Motorsports Park track is incredible – the elevation changes and blind corners make it one of my favorites in North America.

The biggest issue I had with the IndyCar.com coverage this weekend was the lack of onboard footage. For example, Pippa Mann put together a great lap description prior to the race but we had no visual reference to accompany it. Thankfully, I’m quite familiar with the course but not everyone is.

Note to those in charge of Indy Lights coverage— You Need More Onboard Footage. This is especially important for a circuit like Barber Motorsports Park.